I’m blogging today at Coffee with Canine about my dog Honey and her two best friends – Coffee and Gentle Ben.
Please stop by and catch up on the latest doings for me and other authors!
Hi, there!
I’m blogging today over at Brava Authors about KISSES LIKE A DEVIL and how William and Viola’s sons got their names.
Please stop by and chat if you get a chance!
Diane
Hello, friends!
I’m blogging today over at Brava Authors about why books and mushrooms somehow behave very similarly. Please stop by and share your thoughts!
Diane
Up close and personal, that is.
I’m blogging today on that very subject over at Brava Authors. Please stop by and let us know what you think!
Diane
We’re getting ready to sell the house. (Oh joy unforeseen…) As part of this thrill, we get to open up vistas throughout the house, so potential buyers can see how much space actually exists in our little townhouse. (Riiight.)
In other words, everything we can possibly live without gets to go into storage so strangers can traipse through our home. If this works, we get more money. I call this A Big Incentive. What I’m having a really hard time with is watching all my so-called spare books go into storage.
Every piece of fiction – gone. All of my Linda Howard collection, Elizabeth Lowell, Angela Knight, Georgette Heyer, Lora Leigh, volumes of Secrets, and more – vanished into boxes and locked up. Okay, they’re carefully labeled and I do have a key. But can I wander over to my bookshelf and grab one? Can I look up a quick bit of DREAM MAN for a fast bit of inspiration? Or how about THESE OLD SHADES for Vidal’s sublime way of putting pretentious idiots in their place? No, I have to rely upon my memory. Well, I do have these well-loved, well-thumbed keepers memorized but, even so, my friends aren’t with me any more!
I even had to prune my research collection. I pray my editor doesn’t want a detailed explanation of the Texas Ranger history behind BOND OF DARKNESS; most of those books are now sleeping peacefully. My Arab histories of the Crusades – well, I made it through BOND OF BLOOD so I probably don’t need them any more, even if they do help explain Don Rafael’s broad cultural tolerances. I even had to pack up many of my Civil War histories, which is dreadful for somebody who likes to prowl Civil War sites on free weekends.
Still, who’d have thought I could take sixty boxes of books out – and still have so many books left in the house? I still have my basic research library here, more than capable of taking me through the next Devil book and my 1920’s paranormal romance.
Plus I do have a few novels stashed away. My Treo is still stuffed with ebooks, including NY Times bestsellers thanks to eReader. I’ve got a complete collection of JD Robb novels hidden there.
And my copy of Dakota Cassidy’s THE ACCIDENTAL WEREWOLF arrived the day after my other novels went into storage.
Hmm, I seem to hear a novel calling to me. Please excuse me while I go check out Dakota’s book.
Happy reading, friends!
I went shopping today at lunch. (Okay, so this is NOT the world’s most startling news but, please, stay with me. LOL)
While cruising through the mall, I happened to stroll past a display at that most splendid storehouse of delights, the meganormous bookstore. They were showing off books written by presidential candidates still in the running:
John McCain’s Faith of My Fathers and Hard Call,
Hillary Clinton’s It Takes A Village and Living History and An Invitation to the White House
The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
as well as
Quit Digging Your Grave with A Knife and Fork, Living Beyond Your Lifetime, and more by Mike Huckabee.
Wow, all the major parties’ remaining candidates were there, while the ones who’d dropped out just didn’t have multiple titles listed in the catalogue. Maybe writing books really does teach people how to communicate – or gives them the stamina to hang on and keep talking, even when everybody around them thinks they’re crazy. Or at least hopelessly delusional for attempting this project, in the first place.
Who’d have thought running for president and being an author had so much in common?
Go, Team Author, go!
For the past two weeks, I’ve been enjoying the life of a full-time writer. I finished working at one ordinary day job and found myself with a two week gap before I started the next day job. So I happily trotted out into the wide world, calling myself a full-time author, and armed with a long to-do list. Number one, of course, was to write three-four hours every day.
Hah!
I really should have known better. The last time I tried being a full-time author, real life smacked me hard in the face and I wound up working ferociously, just to keep my head above water and finish all my deadlines on time. How do full-time authors keep away all the people who believe they stay home to be social? Or run errands? Or keep an eye on their project?
I think successful full-time authors must have a hidden ninja warrior inside them, who leaps out yelling, “Aiiieeeee!” and chops through all the ridiculous odds and ends, in order to protect their writing time. I’ll try cultivating mine harder next time.
But tomorrow it’s back to the grindstone at a new day job. I’m so used to that kind of tight schedule, it already feels like coming home.
Diane
